


A Seal Upon Your Arm

by TiamatsChild



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Community: fma_fic_contest, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 00:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/768052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiamatsChild/pseuds/TiamatsChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your body is the text of your past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Seal Upon Your Arm

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fma_fic_contest at Livejournal for prompt 50, "Comfort". Spoilers for the Ishval flashback arc.

The right arm was his and not his. It was his, the fingers curled inward to the palm of his hand when he willed it. It was not his, that palm was different from his own, though only he could see those differences now, with years and change between.

His and not his. His but his only because his brother had given it. His brother’s faint burn scar on the back of the hand – a hot oven, a child’s imperfect control, so long ago now, but how he, seeing his brother jerk and gasp in pain, had wept with fear, and his brother saying, “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” though he must have been afraid himself. His brother’s bones, shifting beneath tendon and muscle and skin, acted upon and acting, never seen but always present, the same as the currents that underlie the world. His brother’s tattoos, bright blasphemy of care, that had allowed him to hold reality, change it, make it fall in line and make his brother whole, no matter how it cost him.

God dear God who guides and guards – his brother with his hand beneath the pump, smile firm, the pain crowded into the corners of his eyes, his voice even as if he knew the truth and wanted, in the kindest way, the simplest way, to share. As if truth were something that soothed instead of tearing you open, burning you away. "It's all right. It’s all right. We’ll take care of it together, won’t we?”


End file.
